Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security will set up a new department specialized in preventing and combating corruption, local newspaper Youth reported Tuesday.

"The establishment of an anti-corruption department should be established soon... Battling corruption is a regular task. Before the introduction of this department, relevant agencies have already had this function (anti-corruption)," the newspaper quoted Deputy Minister of Public Security Le The Tiem as saying.

Tiem said the ministry is actively probing into a corruption case at the Project Management Unit No. 18 under the Transport Ministry, under which the unit's general director named Bui Tien Dung has spent millions of U.S. dollars on making soccer bets via an international gambling ring.

The detained general director has instructed his underlings to attempt to bribe some local influential figures so that they would campaign for slighter charges against him.

At a review conference held by the ministry in June 2005, the ministry reported that they uncovered 176,534 economic crimes between 1993 and 2004, including 9,960 cases of corruption.

The amount of money found in each corruption case during the 1990s averaged 710 million Vietnamese dong (VND) (nearly 44,700 dollars), but increased to 810 million VND (50,900 dollars) in the 2000-2004 period, the conference was told.

Source: Xinhua